


This Chosen Cage

by Psychomanteum (SilentP)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, BDSM, Bondage, Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Non-Sexual Bondage, POV Remus Lupin, mentions of past sexual encounters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-26 23:06:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21108665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilentP/pseuds/Psychomanteum
Summary: Remus forgets himself in the ropes. There’s some irony to it, that only in being bound does he find freedom from his thoughts. And yet here he is, ready to take himself apart in the arms of a man who has unmade him again and again.





	This Chosen Cage

**Author's Note:**

> Time for my 'new fandom melancholy bondage,' which is apparently a Thing for me. Wolfstar fic has been steadily taking over my brain recently.

The bedroom is just as chilly and damp as the rest of Grimmauld Place. Usually Remus would ward this off by adding a jumper to his usual threadbare ensemble. Instead, he shivers as he adds his folded socks to the pile of his clothing.   


“Last chance to run,” Sirius jokes from the far side of the bed. He’s still dressed in the Muggle clothes he’s too thin for, toying with one end of the rope. Once Remus would have taken the gesture for a tease, but Sirius is looking at the bed, not him. His hair falls down around his face, sharpening the dire lines of his cheekbones. It’s more emaciated than handsome, but that doesn’t stop Remus from wanting to reach out and touch.   


Instead he sits on the edge and runs his thumbnail along a line of stitching in the duvet. “Just remember that it will be different,” he says. “I’ll be—”   


“Moony,” Sirius interrupts. Remus surprises himself with how violently his head jerks up. Apparently he’s a little nervous himself. His eyes meet Sirius’s at last, and silent understanding passes between them:  _ me too, _ they say to each other,  _ me too. _

“We’ve gone over this,” Sirius says, “extensively.”   


“Maybe we should just do it the way we used to,” Remus says. He can feel the gooseflesh rising along his chest, and picks at the blankets more to keep from crossing his arms over it.   


“You said you didn’t want to fuck this time,” Sirius says. “You sure don’t look like you want to. I appreciate all the thought you put into my dick, but it won’t fall off if it doesn’t get attention for once.”   


Remus snorts in laughter, then puts a hand over his face. “Sirius.”   


“I am,” Sirius says, leaning in now. He puts a hand on Remus’s shoulder. His fingers are clammy and rough, but Remus doesn’t pull away, he just puts his own hand over it. “If you really want to return the favor, get me out of this house sometime. No, don’t argue about that, I know what Dumbledore’s orders are. The point is, your sexy body is a benefit, but it’s not the reason I’m doing this. I’m not nineteen any more.”   


“No, you’re not,” Remus says, squeezing his hand. “I’m ready, really. I’m just…”   


Thinking too much?” Sirius suggests. He accompanies it with an exaggerated leer and a sloppy lick to Remus’s cheek that makes him laugh again and elbow Sirius away. “Let’s fix that.”   


“Well, now I’m having second thoughts,” Remus says, but he slides his legs up the bed and tilts his head towards Sirius.   


Sirius uses the hand on his shoulder to pull Remus into a kiss. His lips are just as chapped and bitten as Remus’s, but the gentle pressure and the warmth make it easier for Remus to relax. They keep the kiss chaste, but it could easily switch to something more if they wanted. Remus’s prick twitches, when Sirius’s hand slides from his shoulder to his neck, then down his chest. He ignores it.   


With his hand resting over Remus’s heart, Sirius must surely be aware of the rabbit-beat of Remus’s pulse. Remus kneads his thighs, clenching and unclenching his fingers. When they were younger, Sirius would have sought to distract him by stroking him to arousal, but somewhere along the way they’ve learned to temper their ardor with understanding. Sirius’s other hand curls at the back of Remus’s neck, his thumb rubbing soothing circles.   


When they were younger, when they were nineteen, everything seemed to lead to sex. They did the wildest shit, and they did it all fast and hard and desperate. Fear was a constant unwanted companion who stole into their dinners and joined them in bed as they tried to sleep at night. The only way to shake it off seemed to be fucking each other silly. Remus can still feel the swell of passion when he recalls some of those nights—the alleyways, the closets, every inappropriate place Sirius pinned his hands to the nearest surface and devoured him whole.   


The memory of his hands tied to the headboard with Sirius fucking his mouth fed his guilty fantasies for years, even when he tried to purge the who of it from his mind. Even now, it’s enough to bring a flush to his body that has him leaning into Sirius’s touch.   


Sirius pulls back slowly, his lips and hands leaving Remus’s as though afraid to spook him by moving too abruptly. Remus’s eyes slide open to find Sirius’s hooded gaze on him, watching intently. When Sirius sees him looking, he smiles, then leans back to start pulling his shirt up over his head.   


“Sirius,” Remus starts. Sirius gets the shirt off his head, leaving his hair a mess, and starts unbuttoning his jeans.   


“No, I know,” Sirius says. “I’m not trying to start anything, Remus. I just—” he grimaces, waving one hand through the air. “I want to be touching you.”   


Remus bites his lip, but Sirius is mostly soft when he awkwardly shimmies his jeans off of his hips. He can trust Sirius, he reminds himself. Remus isn’t the only one whose needs are different now. “Okay,” he says, and Sirius leans in to press a kiss to his cheek, though it mostly ends up with their stubble rubbing together.   


Then Sirius shoves his clothing off the bed and onto the floor.   


Remus must make a face, because Sirius snorts. “The world won’t end if I end up with wrinkles in my socks, Moony,” Sirius says. “They’ll be fine.”   


Remus shakes his head. “Don’t blame me if you end up with doxy eggs in your pants,” he says, but he leans in anyway.   


It isn’t about sex tonight, but it still feels shockingly intimate when Sirius presses his bare thigh up against Remus’s as they kiss. Remus is achingly aware of the places they’re touching, and the too-many places they’re not. He breathes sharply into the kiss when Sirius’s fingers curl against his hip bone.   


Sirius shifts until they’re no longer kissing, just resting forehead to forehead, their breath mingling in the thin space between them. Slowly, things align. Remus’s eyes slide closed without him meaning to, and his pulse finally begins to slow as Sirius’s hands encircle his wrists, squeezing gently.   


“Kneel in the middle of the bed,” Sirius tells him, and Remus shuffles his way there under Sirius’s gentle direction, as his buttocks are pressed down against his heels and his hands are pressed flat against his thighs. Sirius’s hands skim over his skin, still warm against the chill of the room, and Remus’s cock tries to react to that. He keeps his eyes down on his knees and tries to even out his breathing, but Sirius gathering the rope, visible out of the corner of his eye, serves as a better distraction.   


A shiver travels down his spine as Sirius climbs up onto the bed and disappears behind him. Every part of him is tingling now, but he does his best to remain relaxed, to keep his breathing in a steady circle through his nose and out past his lips.   


The first touch of the rope against his skin burns like a brand. Remus gasps, and Sirius stills.   


“All right?” he asks, putting one hand gently against Remus’s shoulder.   


Remus nods. “Keep going,” he whispers. “Please.”   


And so Sirius, with one last squeeze to his shoulder, does.   


The first time Remus asked for this, he’d been wired from three nights without sleep and ready to claw himself out of his skin, and he’d begged Sirius to use  _ Incarcerous  _ on him _ .   
_

“I just want to stop,” he’d gasped, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes. “I just want to turn off my goddamn brain for a while. Just do it, Sirius, just fuck me. Please.”   


Sirius hadn’t understood it, then. Remus had known it from the moment he’d paused, and had pressed harder against his eyes, so he would see starbursts behind his lids instead of the look he’d known Sirius was giving him.   


But Sirius had agreed, which was all that mattered to him at that time. “Whatever does it for you,” he’d said, with the same leer he always used, and then he’d groped Remus, and then they’d fucked hard and fast and Remus had fallen asleep at last with a mind like an empty jar.   


He’d woken up alone.   


Remus never asked for that again, had never had the chance to with their relationship deteriorating faster than he could truly process. Then Halloween had come about and everything was destroyed and Remus was alone. It had taken years before he’d been able to trust anyone to so much as pin him.   


Now, Sirius begins by fastening a loose collar of rope around Remus’s neck, then working his way down. “Arms behind your back,” he tells Remus.   


Remus knows exactly how Sirius is going to tie him. He was the one to explain it in the first place, to detail each step down to the kind of knots, the length of rope needed for each part. He could tie this himself, but that’s not the point. Remus moves only when Sirius’s guiding hands until his wrists overlap at the small of his back.   


His eyes drift closed as Sirius loops rope once, twice, three times around his wrists, pulling it snug against his skin.   


“Not too tight?” Sirius asks, his thumb rubbing against the base of Remus’s skull. Remus twists his wrists slowly to test the give of the rope, and shakes his head. Sirius hums and presses a kiss against the knobs of his spine. “Next bit, then,” he says. Remus hears more rope sliding, feels a gentle tug as Sirius completes the knot on his wrists.   


“Yes,” Remus breathes. His thoughts feel like slow ocean waves, crashing against him then rolling back away, pulling tension like sand back away with him. Piece by piece, he erodes. The ropes are the only thing holding him together, and with them, Remus thinks he could drift forever. His prick is half-hard, but the arousal is only one more thing happening to his body, like the chill of the room or the tension of holding himself in the pose the ropes require him. There’s no urgency to any of it. It just… exists.   


It’s never been like this before. He’s tried casting the spells himself, has gone to clubs that cater to this sort of thing. Being bound is a safety valve, a release he only allows himself every so often, when everything is a little too sharp, when his head is whirling a little too fast. There’d always been the risk of it ending badly, and he’s been burned over the years. But this—

He’s never trusted anyone more.   


Time marches on, moment to moment, as Sirius ties knots along his chest, binds legs together at the ankles and the knees. Each touch leaves him tingling with the lingering pressure of the rope on his skin and Sirius’s slowly warming hands. The hands just move on, taking up the next section of rope. He doesn’t notice the cold any more, or the stiffness of holding the pose. Everything seems so very far away.   


By the time Sirius whispers “here we are,” into his ear, Remus hardly hears him. He blinks, and registers a hand against this face. Sirius is there in front of him now. His eyes are beautiful. They look softer than Remus has seen them in a long time.   


“Move with me, love.”   


There are hands on his shoulders, helping him to balance as he’s pulled down onto his side. His head rests on Sirius’s thigh. His arms are still behind him, but Sirius arranges him with intent, helps him curl his legs forward. Fingers comb through his hair, a gentle kiss is pressed to the shell of his ear.   


His eyes are wet, but he’s pressed up against Sirius’s body, and an arm curls around his shoulder, feeding warmth through him. “I’ve got you, Remus,” he hears, over and over. The hands are gentle with him, lingering over his scars and bony angles as much as his untouched, healthy skin. “I’m here, love. I’m here, I’m here, I’m here.”   


Something drips against his cheek, then a thumb wipes it away. Remus nuzzles into the hand, and hears a watery chuckle. A kiss lands against his cheek, and things drift away again, with the gentle, rhythmic motion of hands against his body.   


He dreams, or maybe remembers, a little cottage in Wales, a narrow bed that had forced him and Sirius to tangle their legs and wrap their arms around each other. Neither of them had much complained, even though they could never manage to sleep through the night all tangled up together.   


Early one morning, they’d lain together, neither of them able to drift back into sleep but too tired to do anything more than blink at each other. Sirius had slowly taken Remus’s hand, then his wrist, in his own fingers.   


“Moony,” he’d said slowly. “Do you remember that time when I...”

He’d taken both wrists then, curling them together in between his own fingers, barely even a restraining hold. Remus’s pulse had thudded through his head anyway, his blood like an impact against his body.   


“Yes,” he’d whispered, an inflectionless question.   


“I get it now, I think,” Sirius had said. His eyes had been fixed on Remus’s knobby wrists. He’d squeezed them gently. “I know I didn’t before, not really.”   


Remus had breathed out the barest inflection of a question, watching Sirius watch his hands.   


“This is your Padfoot, isn’t it?”

“I…”   


He will remember the look on Sirius’s face forever. In that moment, he’d worn thirteen years of suffering so plainly it made Remus’s heart ache.   


“Yes,” he’d said, finally.   


“I’m sorry,” Sirius had whispered.   


Remus had twisted his hands until his fingers were laced with Sirius’s. “I am too.”   


He wakes without ever remembering having fallen asleep. He’s been shifted in his sleep. The ropes are gone, though his arm is still trapped under himself, sensation lost, and he’s still curled in on himself. He’s no longer resting against Sirius’s thigh, but a body is pressed up against his back, and warm arms are wrapped around his waist. It’s almost too hot for the summer weather and the stuffy interior of Grimmauld Place, but Remus doesn’t move. He’s still drifting, a little, still pleasantly floating, and enjoying the novelty of not having to leave, of not dreading the drop when he has to put himself back together into a person.   


Sirius’s breath is puffing against the back of his neck in little grunting snores, and Remus takes the moment to appreciate the feeling of Sirius, truly relaxed and sleeping deeply for the first time in what must be weeks.   


He deserves rest, Remus thinks. He deserves so much more than this rotting old house. Remus can remember through the haze of the binding the shaking voice, the tears on his cheeks. He moves carefully, overlapping his hands on Sirius’s curled around his waist, tangling their fingers together again. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Let me know if you spot typos, confusing sentences, etc.


End file.
